


Contrails

by warriorpoet



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen, Missing Scenes, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1525613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walt, Jesse, guilt, and denial share a studio apartment after Jesse gets back from rehab. Missing scenes from No Mas and Caballo Sin Nombre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contrails

Sunlight caught in the cracks of the windshield and flashed in Walt's eyes. He squinted, and turned his head to sneak a glance at Jesse.

Jesse was blank, his eyes fixed on the broken glass as though he'd found some blessed clarity there.

Walt cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the freeway. "I don't suppose you'll want to go back to your apartment."

"No."

"Clovis has your car, he's keeping it safe with the RV. As far as I know everything is in your apartment as you left it. I could ask Saul to get someone to pack up your things, put them in storage until you're back on your feet. Or I could do it myself – "

"No, I don't want any of it." Jesse shifted slightly in the corner of Walt's eye. "Give it all to Goodwill. Sell it. I had some nice stuff, sweet plasma screen, couple of leather recliners... maybe get some of the money back you spent on rehab. I just... Whatever, I don't want any of it."

"Okay. Fair enough. I'll take care of it."

They drove on.

"I gotta start calling around for a place to crash. Or maybe you could spot me some cash for a hotel? I'll pay you back – "

"You can stay with me for a while. A week or so, maybe. Until you find a new place to live."

Walt glanced over and saw Jesse's wide eyes silently asking him if he'd lost his mind. "Seriously? Stay with you? How – how is that gonna work?"

An ache burned in Walt's jaw. He realised his teeth were clenched. He slackened his mouth, took a deep breath. "It won't be a problem," he said, and tried to give Jesse a hint of a smile.

Jesse was quiet, and when Walt glanced over, he was back to staring at the broken windshield, a frown creasing his brow.

\--

It was unnerving how calm Jesse was. 

The self-proclaimed bad guy sat across from Walt at the small table in his Beachcomber apartment, watching television and eating pizza. An air of solitude clung to him, like it was something he held in his bones and secreted from his pores. 

Walt sat beside him, was with him, together in the same room. But he could feel how truly _alone_ the kid was. What did he have in his life aside from the drugs? His idiot friends, the dealers they'd had: was that his entire support system? Could Jesse be around any of those kinds of people without giving up his sobriety? What sort of life could he have now? Did he even _have_ one?

It was unnerving how calm he was. The prospect surely had to have occurred to him. Being alone, with nothing to fill his days.

Light from the television flickered across Jesse's face, his skin bright as a shark swallowed a seal in slow motion on the screen. Blood filled the ocean and the light turned Jesse red.

He looked over at Walt, his mouth full. "What?" he mumbled.

"Nothing," Walt said.

Jesse didn't roll his eyes. Didn't shrug. Didn't react at all. Just swallowed, and turned back to the TV, his face bright and clear.

It was unnerving.

\--

The couch was empty in the pale light of dawn, the blanket balled up at one side. 

Walt sighed heavily. Of course. Of course he was gone. Slipped out in the night to some other shooting gallery hell hole, passed out with a needle in his arm. He'd heard that addicts who relapsed were most often at risk for an overdose, miscalculating the dosage they could handle once their tolerance was gone. It might already be too late. He could track Jesse down again to find him already gone.

Forget it. Walt was done. He was out. He couldn't keep running after Jesse, trying to save his life. Especially now that their partnership had run its course.

He hesitated, huffed another sigh, and yanked his pants on. 

He went no further than the balcony outside his front door before he saw Jesse. Floating on his back across the pale blue surface of the pool, his arms open wide and eyes closed against the wafting sting of chlorine and the rapid onset of sunlight.

Then, almost as though he sensed Walt nearby, Jesse flipped upright and submerged himself, disappearing into a blob under the surface of the water. Walt stepped back into the doorway of the apartment, carefully hidden from view, and peered over the edge of the railing. It was close to a minute before he heard the splash of Jesse breaking the surface and his distant panting breath echoing off the concrete walls of the apartment complex.

Walt went inside, closing the door quietly.

\--

Jesse was dripping on the couch, towel wrapped around his shoulders, when Walt emerged from the bathroom.

"Morning," Walt said, the forced note of cheer in his own voice setting him on edge. "Been swimming?"

"Yeah."

"I never had you pegged as much of an early riser. In fact, if I remember correctly, I had you in my second period class at least one day a week..."

"Tuesdays." Jesse muttered. "It was Tuesdays."

"Right, that's right. And there seemed to be quite a problem keeping you awake at that time of the morning. So seeing you up and about _now_..." Walt felt something like fondness tugging the corners of his mouth into a smile. He thought of Junior, yawning over pancakes late on a Saturday morning.

"You thought I escaped, didn't you?" Jesse said flatly, bringing Walt back to the present.

"What? No. No, of course not."

"Yeah you did. You saw me gone at the asscrack of dawn and thought I'd escaped to go score."

"Jesse, no – "

"I'm _done_ , yo. I told you."

Walt nodded, and scrambled for a peace offering, his first instinct to go for the thing that always worked at home. "Want some breakfast?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

The cupboards were sparse. Walt hadn't bothered to invest in any kind of extensive grocery shopping since this situation was supposed to be temporary. There was a box of Cheerios, though, and he set about pouring a bowl, fixing coffee for the both of them.

"They had us waking up way early in that place," Jesse said quietly, the scrape of the chair at the small kitchen table almost swallowing his voice. "Like, five a.m. every morning. Now I'm just really used to it. We had to go exercise, because of endorphins or whatever. Natural high. I tried different stuff in the gym, but all that running in place shit made me feel like a hamster or something. But I liked swimming, it felt more like actually getting something done. And you got a pool here, so... thought I should try keep it up while I can."

"Good," Walt set the bowl down on the table. "That's good, Jesse. Anything to keep you occupied."

"You got any sugar?"

Walt tossed a few packets, pilfered from the Wynne teacher's lounge, across the table to Jesse. He ripped them open, one by one, and buried his cereal with a layer of white dust.

That something akin to fondness tugged at Walt again. The fact that Jesse was alive and sitting across from him slowly spooning sugar and milk into his mouth was something that he never could have imagined happening little more than a month ago. 

It made certain difficult decisions seem worth it.

The warmth drained out of Walt's blood as he took in their surroundings. The reason it would have been impossible to imagine this happening was because it should never have happened. The sad bachelor apartment, the tired furniture, the mismatched dishes that came with the place. Sugar packets he'd stolen from work for Christ's sake. This was not him. This was not how his life was supposed to be.

He took a sip of coffee and it burned going down as the clink of Jesse's spoon in the bowl scraped along his eardrums.

\--

Before Walt left for work, he gave Jesse his laptop to start looking for a new place to live. Jesse had switched it on and gone straight to Craigslist. He had expected that Jesse would quickly get bored and go back to sleep or spend the day watching television, and, he hoped, be respectful enough to not fill Walt's computer with pornography or pirated video games.

He was surprised, then, when he came back from work in the late afternoon to find Jesse riveted to the computer screen, his intent focus plainly written in the knot of his brow. His eyes were red and glazed when he finally tore them away from the laptop and slowly focused on Walt.

"Have you seen this shit?" Jesse asked before Walt could say a word.

"What?"

"Look. Look at this. People were taking pictures. There's, like, _hundreds_ of them. Look – there's an _arm_ on somebody's roof."

Walt slowly stepped behind him and saw the screen of his laptop, the web browser cluttered with tabs, the photograph of a suburban home not unlike his own, a yard littered with wreckage, the scorched hint of a limb blending into roof tiles against the bright blue sky.

Jesse glanced at him before clicking into another tab. "And this one. Look. Mr. White, look. There were _kids_ on the plane."

He jabbed his finger at the screen and Walt saw a collage of images. A torn Dora backpack, a child's sneaker by the side of the road, a small, wrecked body someone had hastily covered with a tarp, a broken leg twisted out from under one edge. He knew that street. It was a few blocks from his home.

"Jesus, Jesse, I don't want to see this. You shouldn't be looking at this."

"I _did this_ , Mr. White. Okay? I _have_ to look at it."

"How many times do I have to say this was not your fault? Get rid of all that. I don't want it on my computer."

"That shit you were saying about the collision radar, though? I read one thing where that was proven wrong. There was, like, a backup thing or something that should've overridden it, and even if there wasn't, if Jane's dad had his shit together it wouldn't have happened. People are sending him death threats. That dude's life is _fucked_. Like it wasn't bad enough she died, you know? She said he was a hardass, and from what I saw he was, but... but he loved her. You could tell. You should've seen his face when... when... God, just..." Jesse trailed off, shaking his head, and turned back to the screen. "And this one, man, there's, like, a seat with a pair of legs still strapped in – "

"Is this what you've been doing all day? Looking at these morbid pictures?"

"No. Not all day. I read stuff too. News articles about the crash. All the stuff I missed when I was in rehab. There was one thing that had profiles of all the people – "

"Jesse, stop. Just – please, just close all that down. This isn't healthy. How can you spend your day sitting there looking at that and not be triggered into a relapse? Hmm? Think about that. It's not worth losing your sobriety over this."

"I have to see what happened – "

"I saw it, Jesse. I saw it happen. And trust me, you do not need to see it. Especially the way you're blaming yourself like this, which, as I told you, is completely irrational. Accidents happen. Random occurrences coming together to produce a bad outcome. It's tragic, but that's all this is."

Jesse pushed back from the table, and looked up at him with glassy eyes. "You saw it?" 

"I... I was sitting outside, in my yard, when I heard the explosion. I looked up, and... and there it was. We were under the flight path and there... there was... significant debris around our house. Our whole neighborhood."

"Significant debris... debris like what? Plane parts? _Bodies_?"

Walt sighed and reached over Jesse's shoulder to snap the laptop closed, yanked the plug out and carried it back to stuff in his suitcase. He wanted to wipe the hard drive clean, get every trace of those pictures off there. He wanted to set it on fire and throw it out the window. Wanted to shake Jesse until the images tumbled out of his head, draining from his ears and eyes and mouth. "Did you even make _any_ attempt today to find somewhere to live?"

"Yeah. I did. And since you're home now I'm gonna try calling one of my buddies for a ride to go pick up my car, and tomorrow I'll go out and find something and get out of your way. Alright? Just chill."

"Is it a good idea for you to be around those people? What if they're using?"

"Jesus. Fine, alright, can you give me some cash and I'll get a cab?"

"No, Jesse. I'll take you to get your car."

"I'll pay you back when I get my money from Saul. You know I'm good for it."

"It's not the money. I just don't think you should be alone right now. You've spent a whole day wallowing in this trauma – "

Jesse groaned. "Whatever, man. Just make up your mind. You wanna babysit me or don't you?" He kicked the chair back and stretched. Walt could hear his joints popping. 

"I'm not babysitting you – "

"We gonna go now?"

"Yes, we'll go now. Just give me a minute."

"I'll wait downstairs."

Jesse picked up his wallet from the coffee table and his jacket from the arm of the couch and slammed the door behind him. When Walt went downstairs a few minutes later, he found Jesse sitting on the edge of the pool with his jeans rolled up to his knees, feet in the water and sneakers and socks scattered around him, his head tipped back as he stared into the sky.

Walt followed his gaze and saw the white vapour trail of a jet as it passed by. He heard the distant roar of the engine a few seconds later and looked back to Jesse. 

His head turned as he watched the plane pass, as though every aircraft in the sky would explode the second he turned his attention away.

Walt stood watching him for a long while before creaking the gate open and startling him back to earth.

\--

They stared in silence through the Aztek's cracked windshield, through the chain link fence and across the lot full of cars to the Bounder parked at the back of Clovis's yard.

Jesse finally sighed and bumped his fist against the door. "Alright. I'll just go grab my car. Do I owe him anything extra?"

"No," Walt said. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "It's been taken care of."

Jesse reached for the door handle and Walt stopped him with a touch on his arm.

"I'll stop on the way back and get you a copy of the key. For the apartment. Make it easier for you to come and go, so you don't have to stay out all day if you don't want to."

"Alright. Thanks."

Jesse bit his lip, an almost wistful expression as he looked back to the Bounder.

Walt touched the keys, ready to turn the ignition back on. "I'll see you back there, then."

Jesse shook himself out of it, looking quickly over at Walt before popping the door open. "Yup," he said, and then he was gone, walking quickly across the yard toward his car.

Walt kicked the engine over and pulled back on to the street.

\--

He let himself in to Jesse's half of the duplex, through the front door this time, pointedly ignoring the bare glass of the apartment next door, the empty, dark room beyond. From what he'd gathered about the situation, he was surprised Donald Margolis hadn't dumped Jesse's belongings on the sidewalk. But, Walt supposed, Donald Margolis had had much bigger problems the past several weeks. 

He walked back to the bedroom and paused at the unmade bed. He imagined he could still see the imprint of the girl's body there, could hear her struggling for breath. 

The sheet of cardboard on the door was still unstuck, dust mites dancing in the shaft of light.

Walt quickly set about packing some of Jesse's clothes up into a box, getting whatever personal effects he could quickly locate, anything that looked important. It was ridiculous, the room made him just as edgy as that hellhole he'd dragged Jesse out of afterwards, but there was nothing there, it was just an empty bedroom, Christ, it's not like he hadn't dealt with death before. He remembered Jesse sleeping in the RV in his driveway after Emilio and Krazy 8. His superstition, his fear of haunted places. The panic in his voice that morning when he'd woken up next to her. 

A silver skull laughed at Walt from one of Jesse's t-shirts.

He shoved the boxes he'd manage to pack in the back of his car and took a deep breath of the clean air outside. He'd get around to finding someone to clear out the rest of the apartment. He didn't have time to do it himself.

\--

Walt lay in the dark, turning Fring's offer over and over in his mind, eroding it, smoothing it out like a pebble in a rushing stream. If he thought about it enough, perhaps he could shrink it to the point it became insignificant, the kind of thing that wouldn't keep him awake for more than a night.

Three million dollars. Turning it down wasn't a mistake. It couldn't be. He was too careful to make the same mistake again.

Now, alone in the dark at almost two in the morning, he would gladly admit that he wanted it, wanted the money, wanted his work to be that valuable. But even so, he knew none of it was worth it without Skyler and the kids. What would he be, alone, cooking meth for three million dollars that his family didn't want? Christ, he'd be... well, he'd be _Jesse_ , aimless, living for nothing, waiting for death, more money than sense. 

Maybe one day he could tell Skyler about Fring's offer, that he turned it down to have his family back. Then she'd see that he'd done what he'd done to leave them something, he'd done it, he'd _earned_ it, and then he had stopped, right at the moment when things might have gotten easier. Because it was wrong. Because he needed her and the kids more than anything.

He drifted, the pebbles tumbling through the currents as he floated above them. He must have slept, because he was jerked awake by a crash and a sharp hiss.

" _Bitch_."

Jesse was up, stumbling for the bathroom in the dark, an indistinct shape in the dim shadows from the street lights outside, creeping past Walt's bed, groping the wall for direction.

Walt lay awake as the door quietly closed and the light snapped on. He heard the faint sound of Jesse pissing, the toilet flush and water running.

"Jesse," he said when the light snapped off and the door eased open.

"Shit!" he startled. "Sorry – sorry, I was trying not to wake you, Mr. White – "

"I was already awake."

"Oh. Well... sorry."

"No, it's not you, it's just..." Walt shrugged, though he doubted Jesse could see him clearly enough. "Why don't you sit?"

"What?"

"Sit with me." He patted a space on the covers beside him.

"Okay..." Jesse was wary, hesitant. It was a strange request, Walt conceded, practically inviting the kid into his bed in the middle of the night. But, really, it was no stranger than the close proximity of nights they'd spent side by side on camping cots in the RV.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Walt began as he felt the bed dip, Jesse perching right on the edge of the mattress, somewhere down by his feet. "What are your plans, moving forward? Have you thought about it yet?"

"Uh, no. Not really."

"Just think about it, though. You have a second chance. All that money. Think of the possibilities. All the things you could do with your life."

"I don't know. Like, buy rent and food and shit for a couple years? Just maybe lay low for a while and then... you know. Same as before."

"Jesse, no. No. You can't go back to that life. We have a second chance, both of us, and we need to make good use of it."

"Maybe. I dunno."

"Now, I know it won't be easy. For you. Or for me... God, now that Skyler knows what I've been doing – "

"Whoa, whoa, what? Mr. White. Your wife _knows_? Knows _what_ , exactly?"

Everything was caught in a rushing stream, whirling eddies and tiny rocks crashing against each other over and over. In his exhausted, sleepless state, it took Walt a moment to realize what he'd said. 

He sighed. "She had her suspicions and made an educated guess about how our bills had been paid. I confirmed it. That's all she knows."

Jesse was suddenly a crackling ball of livid energy beside him, more engaged than Walt had seen him since he'd picked him up from rehab. "But... how much is that? Is she gonna turn you in? Is she gonna turn _me_ in? Hell, she was on my ass enough when she thought I was selling you pot, but... oh, my God, how could you not tell me this? We're partners, man, I need to _know_ this shit – "

"Jesse, calm down. It's none of your concern. She's not going to tell anyone. There's nothing _to_ tell anymore."

"Well, shit, thanks for filling me in." His voice was thick with sarcasm as he flopped back on the bed, his breath ragged. "Give me a fucking heart attack why don't you. Jesus."

"It's fine. It's going to be fine. Like I said, second chance. A new beginning."

"Yeah. Good luck with that," Jesse muttered.

Walt reached for Jesse through the low light, gripping his bony shoulder in a tight fist. " _You_ have a completely clean slate, Jesse. Think about it. You're the lucky one here."

Jesse exhaled, short and disbelieving. When he spoke, his voice was flat. "I gotta get some sleep. Big day of house hunting tomorrow."

"Right." Walt released him and felt the bed move as Jesse crawled away. "You can turn the light on. Don't want you hurting yourself."

"Nah. I'm good."

Walt settled against the pillows, closed his eyes, and listened to slow shuffling of Jesse's cautious feet as he fumbled back through the dark.

\--

He gave up on sleep a few hours later and rose to shower and dress.

Jesse slept through it, or at least pretended to. He was curled on his side, the back of the couch pressed against his back like another body.

The girl. The girl passed out on her side next to Jesse. Jesse's dead weight, limbs like a rag doll. The girl flat on her back, choking. 

It was hours before he needed to be at work, but he had to go, had to leave _now_. It felt as though Jesse's small, silent body had expanded to fill every inch of space in the apartment, was sucking up every molecule of oxygen, a needy, raging fire that scorched all it touched.

Walt quickly gathered his things. It was so early. The sun was barely up. He got into his car and started to drive, nowhere in particular, holding his breath until the Beachcomber disappeared from the rear view. He turned the radio up and kept going.

\--

Walt tried to keep his head ducked, focusing a stack of quizzes he was grading, hoping Jesse was somehow distracted and wouldn't notice his swollen, red eyes. 

"Holy shit. What happened to you? You flunk somebody with anger issues?"

Walt's jaw clenched, his pen biting into the paper. "It's nothing," he muttered.

"That ain't nothing, yo. What, you go try to patch things up with your wife and she pepper sprayed your ass because you told her you're a drug dealer?"

Jesus. As if talking about Skyler with Saul hadn't been bad enough, they had to have this conversation again. He glared up at Jesse. "Is that really necessary?"

Contrite, Jesse shrugged a half-assed apology. "C'mon man, what happened?"

"I may have been..." Walt sighed and put his pen down, trying to collect the right words. "I was involved in... there was a – a police incident. Minor. Very minor."

The chair dragged across the linoleum as Jesse sat down. "Police incident? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Police incident involving, like, what, like a your wife _talking to the police_ kind of incident?"

"No. No, Jesse, it's nothing like that. You don't have to be concerned with that, she would never – it's not going to happen."

Jesse shook his head, impatient gaze glued to Walt's face. "So? What then? Mr. White?"

Walt heaved another sigh and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He rolled his eyes back, examined the ceiling. There was a stain he hadn't noticed yet, a misshapen yellow blob where the paint bubbled a little. "It was a traffic stop. Because of my broken windshield. I told him it was from the crash debris and he wrote me a ticket. I... felt that was unnecessary and I may have overreacted, and lost my temper. Things got out of hand. That's all, it's barely worth talking about."

He looked back to find Jesse staring at him, open mouthed. Then his mouth clamped shut, a chuckle forcing itself out from between his lips. Then a full-blown laugh and he doubled over the table, his head in his hands.

Irritation prickled at Walt's skin, burning like the aftermath of the officer's mace. "Oh, well, I'm glad you're amused."

Jesse cackled, his forehead pressed to the table. He gasped for breath. "Oh, my God, _seriously_?"

"Why do I even bother?" Walt muttered to himself.

"Blowing up at a cop over nothing? What the hell, man?"

"I may have handled it poorly, but it's fine. There's no problem. It's nothing worth talking about."

Jesse lifted his head, eyes watering. "But... Mr. White, c'mon, I mean, that's something I'd be fucking dumb enough to do."

"That's a thrilling advancement in your own self-awareness, Jesse, but that's enough. I'm through discussing this."

He waved Jesse off and turned back to grading, his face burning, sinuses stinging all over again. He looked down at his own hand, his fingers bloodless as they pressed against the pen.

There was a long silence filled only by the scratch of pen on paper before Jesse sighed. "Yo, I'm sorry, alright? I was just busting your balls."

Walt inked the last heavy red X on the page and tallied up the grade. 13 out of 40. He wrote the number, circled it, wanted to write an _Are you kidding me? Pretend to try_ after it, but restrained himself, settling for a _You can do better. Apply yourself_.

"You gotta admit, Mr. White, if you think about it it's kinda funny. I mean... there hasn't been a whole lot of shit to laugh about lately, but this..."

A chuckle died in Jesse's throat as Walt reached for the next test. A dog barked somewhere in the apartment complex, a siren whipped past a couple of streets away.

"Hey, hows about I go grab some dinner, huh? Burgers, maybe? I could totally go for a burger. You hungry?"

The chair rattled against the linoleum again as Jesse was making for the door before Walt could answer, before he could even look up and acknowledge that Jesse had spoken. 

"That's fine, Jesse. Thank you," Walt answered quietly.

But Jesse was still talking, mostly to himself, and was gone before Walt had finished his answer.

\--

"Any progress on finding a new place?"

Another night, another sad little take out dinner in front of the television. Pizza again. Jesse mumbled around a mouthful, "I'm gonna buy my house back."

Walt frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

Jesse swallowed, took a swig from his can of soda. "My parents did it all up. They're selling it. I'm gonna buy it. I talked to Saul about it. We've got a plan."

"A plan? You need a plan to buy a house?"

"Yeah, I mean... what they're asking is way over what I can afford. So, I told Saul that there was a meth lab in the basement at one time, and he's gonna go... do what he does. 'Cause they haven't disclosed it, and he's gonna try using that to talk 'em down." Jesse shrugged and took another bite of his slice.

It was devious. Walt tried to imagine his own son doing something like that to him. It would be a kick in the gut, years of trying to raise a good kid thrown in your face as a final fuck you, circumstances beyond your control pulling your own child away from you. "You know," Walt began, trying not to let himself go down the path of his own ruined family. "I think I remember your parents. They came to a parent-teacher night once. Well, at least once, I'm sure of it."

"Yeah. They did. I remember getting chewed out after. They gave up after that semester."

"They seemed like nice people."

Jesse scoffed.

"No, they did. I see a lot of parents. The ones that care enough to come talk to the teachers... even some of them don't really care. Or they're too biased to acknowledge their child's problem areas and help to work on them, and that can be just as bad. But I remember your parents. I've been thinking about it since we started this whole thing, and I do remember them. They were concerned. You'd never been an A student, but they insisted you had ability. You just had a motivation issue. They thought you could do better. I did too."

Jesse's eyes narrowed as he ate. He sat back and waited for Walt to continue.

"That's one thing I always find so frustrating about students. When they've so obviously been given all the advantages they need to do well – a good, stable, well-off family, not wanting for anything... and yet they still choose to throw all that away. And for what? I would have given _anything_ for a family like that when I was young... to have opportunities just handed to me, to do whatever I wanted. Limitless potential, without having to work for it." Walt contemplatively broke a piece of crust off. "Anyway, the point is that we all thought you _did_ need to put the work in to make use of it. And, obviously, no matter what anyone did, that didn't get through to you at the time. But they seemed like nice people, your parents."

Jesse's voice was low and hard, resonating with that note of level calm that had taken root since he'd been back. "Well, people can seem however they wanna seem, Mr. White. You of all people should know that. I mean, nobody would know by looking at you that you've done the things you've done. Right? Just like nobody would know by looking at my folks that they've got a junkie loser for a kid that they pretend doesn't exist. It's about owning your shit. Not trying to pretend your kid is able to be some kind of valedictorian or whatever when he clearly ain't."

Walt set his plate down with a clatter. "Well. It'll be nice to have your house back," he said.

"Yeah. I guess."

"Do you know if they fixed up that bathroom?"

"Yeah. Re-did the whole thing. Like nothing ever happened."

"That's good," he said, and picked up the empty pizza box, taking it to the kitchen to stomp it down into halves to fit into the garbage.

\--

After the joy and surprise of finding Junior on his doorstep when he came home, Walt was hit by a sudden rush of humiliation that his son would see him living in a place like this. It gave way to panic as he opened the door and quickly scanned the room for any hint of Jesse that wouldn't be able to be explained away. The inspection came up empty, and he was relieved that Jesse had so far been a surprisingly considerate houseguest.

When his son stepped into the bathroom, Walt hammered out a quick text to Jesse.

_DO NOT COME TO THE APARTMENT. MY SON IS HERE. WILL ADVISE WHEN OK._

He took another look around the room, the sad, tired furniture, the mismatched dishes, the new stains on the ceiling he seemed to discover every day. He quickly pushed Jesse's bag under the bed and thought maybe Junior seeing this wasn't so bad. With any luck, his description of the place would be sufficiently pathetic to garner sympathy from Skyler.

\--

"Why don't we pick up a pizza on the way home, huh? Save your mom from cooking?"

"Yeah. Sounds good, Dad."

Walt carried Junior's overnight bag down the stairs, wishing his son could've stayed. Even if his couch had been empty, Skyler would have given him hell. He had to acquiesce, keep the peace, do whatever it took to get home.

He turned in the direction of his parking space and was suddenly hit with a freezing stab to the gut that radiated cold dread throughout his body as he locked eyes with Jesse.

Stripped down to his boxers, water beaded on his bare chest, sitting cross-legged in a puddle at the side of the pool, dragging on a cigarette despite the no smoking sign on the gate. Right there, right where he shouldn't be, unable to follow a basic instruction as always. Walt saw Jesse's expression change as he zeroed in on Walter Junior with curious eyes. 

Walt stepped between his son and his partner, a guiding hand on Junior's back to steer him in the direction of the car.

"Do you think you could at least just talk to Mom and see if you can keep driving me to school? I'm never gonna get to see you otherwise," Junior said. 

From the corner of his eye, Walt could see Jesse tracking them, his head turning as Walt steered his son away from the pool.

"Dad?" 

"What? Oh. Oh, that's – we'll have to see, son, it's... it's up to your mother, but... I can – yeah, I can try."

Junior sighed and pulled away from Walt as he caught sight of the Aztek and made a beeline for it. Walt glanced over his shoulder.

Jesse gave him a slight nod, the smallest wave of his fingers.

Walt bit back his annoyance and shoved Jesse out of his mind as he followed Junior to the car, more determined than ever to take this as an opportunity to start talking with Skyler and ending this farce.

\-- 

Fuck her.

Closing the door of his own home in his face. The house she was still paying the mortgage for with money he had _earned_ but she wouldn't approve of. She wouldn't approve, but she was fine to spend it with him gone.

Fuck her.

Walt stopped at the liquor store on the way home (home. That apartment was _not_ his home) and blindly pulled bottles from the shelves. A few six-packs of beer, a bottle of scotch – no, fuck it, two. Fuck it. Fuck _her_.

With the bottles clinking together on the floor of the passenger seat, he suddenly felt excessive, reckless, stupid, as though he'd been around Jesse far too long, that his spirit had sunk itself deep into Walt's brain and manifested in a desire for numbness and escape.

His foot jerked down on the accelerator, he cut around a corner too fast, tires squealing and horns honking behind him.

Just... fuck it.

Jesse was lying on the couch, watching cartoons, and Walt hauled the bags from the liquor store onto the counter.

"You should leave," he said.

"What?" Jesse sat up, switched the TV off. "What'd I do? It's not like I talked to your kid or anything. What, you expected me to just sit in my car in Saul's parking lot for a couple hours? Where else am I supposed to go – "

"No. I'm going to be drinking tonight, and I don't think you should be here. Your recovery, Jesse, you don't need to be tempted. You should go."

"What happened?"

Walt waved him off and popped open the first beer, drinking half of it in one long swallow. He coughed. "Go," he said.

Jesse shook his head. "No. You don't look..."

Walt huffed and finished off the bottle. Fine. He was done with all of it. Done with all of them. 

Jesse returned to the couch as Walt moved on to his second beer. "You wanna, like... talk about it?"

"About _what_ , Jesse?"

"Whatever's got you bringing half a liquor store home with you."

"Home," Walt muttered with a derisive snort. "I _have_ no home. I get the door to my home slammed in my face." He waved the open bottle in an arc across the kitchen, drops spilling onto the floor. "Do you have _any_ idea what it's like to have your life taken away from you for no goddamn good reason? Do you? The people you care about, just – gone! Like your whole life together never existed."

Jesse's nostrils flared, his jaw jut forward. He laughed dryly, a hand rubbing his face. "Uh, no. No, I guess nothing like that would have happened to me ever," he said quietly.

Walt took a long draw from the bottle, the cold bitter brew mixing with bile in his throat. He turned his words over in his head, tried to drown them out. He tossed the empty bottle. It shattered inside the garbage can with a crash.

"I should tell her everything," he said, his voice coated in the acrid sting of his throat. He cracked the seal on the scotch, poured himself a glass. "Tell her that people have died because of me. Because of what I did for _them_. Maybe she should have to live with that too."

"Nah, c'mon, man. You're not gonna do that. I know you're pissed, but... whatever happened, y'know... you don't wanna completely fucking ruin it, right? Like you keep saying, second chance, yeah?"

"Yeah," Walt muttered. "Second chance."

He sat on the couch next to Jesse, his third beer in one hand, second scotch in the other. He drank until he was able to block out the open concern in Jesse's eyes.

\--

He didn't remember much. Jesse had gone out for food at some point, had come back and sat at the table eating fistfuls of popcorn and watching a documentary about typhoons or cyclones or hurricanes or some kind of disaster that lit the apartment with diffuse gray light and the glow of yellow rain slickers and bent palm trees. Walt had ranted and raved, had vomited in the sink and spilled a drink down his shirt and across the floor, until Jesse had practically shoved him into bed and told him to sleep it the fuck off.

His head was pounding in the morning light when Jesse woke him.

"I'm gonna take off, Mr. White. I can go pick up the keys to my place and move in this morning, so... I'm gonna go. Get out of your way. Just wanted to let you know." He put a glass of water and some pills on the nightstand beside him. "Here, I got you Tylenol. Should start on it now."

"You're going home," Walt croaked, fumbling for the water glass.

"Yeah." Jesse shrugged. "I guess I am."

"That's good, Jesse. That's good. I'll – " he struggled to sit up, to get his feet on the floor while the room spun around him, the sad furniture and the mismatched dishes and the stains and the mess all colliding together and falling apart. "Let me walk you out."

"No, no, no, stay there, Mr. White. You – you should just stay there."

"No, I'm fine. It's fine." Walt stood, clutching the wall and Jesse's shoulder. "I'm sorry... about last night, I... I hope you know I wasn't angry at you, just... I just needed to let off some steam. Things have been difficult."

"Yeah, no, I get it. It's cool. You just... you just take care of yourself, okay?"

Walt nodded and shuffled after Jesse as he picked up his bag and headed for the door. 

"I, um..." he started, but didn't know what he had planned to say. Whether it was another apology, or perhaps a thank you, what it was or what he meant it to say... he couldn't remember.

"I guess I'll see you 'round, huh?" Jesse said, filling the silence.

Walt nodded again, patted him on the shoulder as he stepped out onto the balcony. Jesse gave him one last look, a small smile, and then he was on his way.

After closing the door, Walt lowered himself to the floor where the room spun less. He crawled across the apartment, thinking of Jesse forcing himself back into his house, taking back what was his from the people who'd stolen it from him. 

Walt might not be the bad guy, but maybe a bad guy tactic was what it would take to set things right.

He stretched out on the floor and tried to think, but the pounding in his head wouldn't quit until he lay his head down and spent a few more hours drifting on the edge of consciousness, his old life trailing after him, a solution to get it back beginning to take form.


End file.
